Republican Presidential Candidate Scott Walker’s Record as Governor of Wisconsin Is, Objectively, Hardly an Asset, Especially When It Comes to the Economy, and, What the Republicans’ Fling with Walker Says About the State of Today’s Republican Party

Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse September 16, 2015  

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) September 16th, 2015

UPDATED September 22nd: Walker, no surprise, has dropped out of the race.

Steve Apps- State Journal

AMMAN — When it comes to politics, I am much more of a policy guy than a personality guy.  I love wonk, and disdain showmen.  I was far more excited about John Kerry as a candidate than Barack Obama (not to say I wasn’t excited about Obama, just not as much as Kerry).  I also was/am more excited about Hillary than Obama for precisely the same reason.  In other words, I care much more about a politician’s record and specific plans than about “character,” “values,” or any of the other more amorphous concepts that are constantly bandied about in our rather thin political discourse.

When it comes to Scott Walker, Wisconsin’s controversial Republican governor, we may be satisfied in knowing that there is a clear record on which we can judge him.  So judge him on this record we must if we are to fulfill our duty as citizens of this republic when we consider for whom we will be voting.  Thus, below, there will be a discussion of the record of this man as Wisconsin’s governor and a concluding discussion of how this record either makes him worthy of consideration for high national office or, conversely, merits him as unworthy of such consideration.

Wisconsin Before Walker

Of course, to judge any record, context is required, so we must examine what Wisconsin was like before Scott Walker became governor.  Obviously, the years before Walker took the office of Governor of Wisconsin in January of 2011 were tough ones for America and Wisconsin, being the years of the Great Recession (2008-2009).  Still, the recession in Wisconsin was not as severe as it was, on average, in the United States as a whole.  Whereas the U.S. as a whole saw employment fall 5.6%, Wisconsin’s employment rate fell by 5.2% (meaning Wisconsin held onto over 7% more of its jobs), and by 2012, Wisconsin recovered 96.7% of its 2010 pre-recession employment level, whereas the U.S. had only recovered 95.3%.  In the year-and-half before Walker took office—a period that was officially after the end of the Recession—Wisconsin actually had an impressive recovery under two-term Democratic Governor Jim Doyle, in office since 2003: Wisconsin added jobs at a faster pace than the U.S. as a whole and most individual states, the value of publicly-traded Wisconsin companies was up 40%, and tax revenue was up 50%.  Additionally, a collaborative effort of a team of leading academics came up with an “Economic Security Index” measurement involving employment, medical care, wealth, and family arrangements meant to demonstrate the level of economic insecurity (i.e., the level of large economic losses for people year-to-year) in each state; in the accompanying reports, it was found that, after New Hampshire, Wisconsin actually had the lowest rise in economic insecurity from 2008-2010 out the forty-eight continental states and the District of Columbia (Hawaii and Alaska were outliers and difficult to measure), covering the entire period of the Great Recession and all of Wisconsin’s recovery period before Scott Walker assumed office.  Another measure, the Bloomberg Economic Evaluation of States, which looks at a range of economic indicators, ranked Wisconsin 20th-best out of all states for Doyle’s 2007-2010 second-term (the same rank applied for the single year 2010, the last year of Doyle’s governorship) and ranks the state #10 overall from the end of the recession until Doyle let office.  Doyle’s second term rank was up from ranking #42 throughout his first term.  Unless one would make the argument that Doyle as governor had no effect, it would seem he managed the Great Recession and recovery relatively well, then.

Of course, there are a large number of factors affecting what a governor can accomplish while in office and affecting these outcomes besides just who is governor, but these statistics and measurements are certainly a necessary dataset to have handy in any discussion of attempting to measure Walker’s impact and performance as governor, which necessarily must be judged in terms of the situation he inherited and what he did with it.

Now you have something of a picture of how Wisconsin was doing relative to other states and the rest of the nation throughout the Great Recession, and before Scott Walker was able to have any impact as Governor of Wisconsin.

Walker Walks onto the Stage

Despite the fact that Wisconsin did better than just about any other state, as the Economic Security Index data makes clear, the people of Wisconsin still suffered greatly during the Great Recession, with about one in six people in the state losing at least 25% of their wealth from one year to the next during the period.  This was such a bad crisis, though, that that is actually a good record.  But one can’t really blame Wisconsin voters for not realizing that or feeling that; voters don’t pay attention to the idea that their relatively less devastated status is better than most, they think more about the fact that they are still devastated.  This translates into anti-incumbent-party feelings.  In fact, in America in general normal people have been struggling during this recovery.  A not insignificant minority of people have been left behind by (and out of) the recovery; far more workers are being paid at or near-minimum wage salaries, and wages are stagnant (this being a persistent problem and having been so for thirty-five years) and not even keeping up with inflation unless you are at the top of corporate structures.  In fact, most of the jobs that have been added during the recovery have been low-wage jobs, not the type of jobs needed to sustain a middle class or social mobility,   Overall, the recovery has been pretty uneven.  Even if someone is going a good job as a leading politician, inevitably under such circumstances, that politician and his party will get some of the blame.

Walker ran primarily on creating jobs (promising to add 250,000 by the end of his first four-year term), cutting government spending, and lowering taxes, and won by close to six percentage points because of voters’ worriesregarding jobs and the economy.  With so much anxiety about the economy, it’s not surprising that he was able to beat a Democratic candidate after a such a painful recession that occurred when a Democrat was in the governor’s mansion.

Walker’s Wisconsin

As for Walker’s big campaign promise of creating 250,000 new private-sector jobs in his first term, he has fallen far short of that promise.  All total, with the final adjusted numbers, Wisconsin saw 129,154 jobs created in the four years of Walker’s first term, from January 2011-December 2014; that’s barely over half the jobs he promised to create.  Furthermore, the vast majority of these have been low-wage jobs even though the vast majority of the jobs Wisconsin lost in the recession were not.  In 2014, Walker’s best year for job growth, the state ranked only #38 overall and 35,759 private-sector jobs were added (this coming from far-lower, far-more-accurate revised data that corrected misleading preliminary data); his four-year average for private-sector job growth in his first term was only 32,288.5 jobs.  Exceeding this average, Doyle’s final year as governor in 2010 saw the state gain 33,658 jobs.  Walker’s first year of 2011 saw the state gain only about 28,000 private-sector jobs but it should also be noted Walker eliminated about 8,000 government jobs that year.  Adding in the loss of government jobs, for much of 2011 Wisconsin had the worst job numbers in the country.  It continued to lag behind most of the rest of the nation for the rest of Walker’s first term.

In general, while the state exceeded the national average rate of job growth during Doyle’s last year as governor by 0.38%, in Walker’s first term as governor, the state was behind the national rate of job growth by 0.59% in 2011, by 0.66% in 2012, by 0.77% in 2013, and by 0.9% in 2014; this means that, even in 2014—what was the most impressive year for job-creation under Walker—the state under his leadership only added jobs at 59% the rate of the nation, seeing its biggest percentage gap in the rate (1.3% growth in Wisconsin vs. 2.2% nationally).  Another poor indicator for Walker’s first term is that the state ranked well in the bottom half (#35) in private-sector job growth in terms of a percentage increase.  In any event, the number of jobs created under Walker is not in any way impressive or a record to point to that would make him presidential material. 

Also under Walker, the African-American unemployment rate in Wisconsin (19.9%) is the highest in the nation and by far (Nevada has the second-highest with 16.1%).

Looking at other factors beyond only (but including) employment, the Bloomberg Economic Evaluation of States looked at Wisconsin from 2011-2014, the period of Walker’s first term, and ranked Wisconsin #35 out of all the states in terms of a range of economic indicators; all of Wisconsin’s neighbors fared far better (Michigan was #3, Illinois #14, Iowa #18, and Minnesota #19).  This #35 ranking was down from the #20 ranking for Doyle’s second term and the #10 ranking the the period of recovery after the recession under Doyle.

The website Wall St 24/7 has been publishing rankings of how well each state is run; Jim Doyle handed off a Wisconsin to Scott Walker in January 2011 that, ranked on data (mostly) from 2010, was #16 overall (the higher the ranking, the better-run the state, based on methodology that took into account unemployment, state credit ratings, per capita debt, crime rates, foreclosure rates, high-school completion rates, change in home values, poverty rates, and health insurance coverage rates).  This ranking had fallen to #26 for data covering the year 2013, using similar methodology. 

Similarly, CNCBC does a ranking of the states in terms of being best for business, and one of the categories is “quality of life,” an index that includes data for the crime rate, protections against discrimination, health insurance coverage, health care quality, healthiness, local attractions, and/or environmental health; for 2010, Doyle’s last year as governor, Wisconsin ranked #19 in this category; four years into Walker’s tenure as governor, Wisconsin rank has dropped to #23 in quality of life.  The same survey had a cost of living index, which ranked Wisconsin #23 in 2010, but saw it drop to #28 in 2014.  The survey’s ranking of each state’s economy overall put Wisconsin at #22 just before Walker took over, and then saw it drop to #30 four years into his stewardship.

In its annual survey ranking which American states are “best” for “business,” Forbes ranked Wisconsin #10 for the year 2010 in its quality of life measurement (taking into account data on schools, health, cost of living, and crime and poverty rates); the same category in the same survey in 2014saw Wisconsin fall to a rank of #17.  In both the CNBC and the Forbes surveys, to be fair to Walker, Wisconsin saw a significant improvement in terms of being ranked good for business.  But in the end, there is an abundance of data relating a wide array of metrics that show Wisconsin to be struggling and/or place Wisconsin under Walker far behind many other states (including all its neighbors and the whole Great Lakes Region) and the national average, metrics that that make it very difficult to argue that Scott Walker has been good for Wisconsin’s economy.  The numbers at least suggest the possibility that Walker’s policies might have slowed and blunted Wisconsin’s recovery.  What is clear in both the CNBC and Forbes surveys is that the rise of a better pro-business environment came at the expense the quality of life of Wisconsin’s residents.

Walker’s Wisconsin is also facing a massive $2.2 billion budget deficit, when not long ago, predictions were for a surplus; rather unsurprisingly, the tax cuts enacted by Walker failed to bring in the revenue he promised they would (tax cuts generally don’t bring in revenue but Republicans don’t seem to notice this reality and prefer to keep that myth as a article of faith) and now Wisconsin’s budget is a mess.

A final interesting tidbit on the economy: Walker signed a repeal of a lawthat forced companies to give retail and factory workers at least one day a week off from work…

As for those quality of life issues that saw the related ranking drop in multiple surveys, let’s begin with poverty.  In 2010, before Walker took office, Wisconsin had 10.1% of its population living in poverty, and had the fifth-lowest poverty rate in the nation.  By 2014, after four years of Walker as governor, the poverty rate had risen to 10.9% and, more tellingly, Wisconsin had dropped to #13 for the lowest poverty rate rankings, providing even more evidence of how badly Wisconsin’s recovery has stalled under Walker. 

Moving onto education, Walker has overseen the largest cuts to public education spending in Wisconsin’s history.  Aside from just cutting one-quarter of a billion dollars from Wisconsin’s state university system and ending legal tenure for its professors, Walker’s new budget also cuts funding for most public schools and does not even keep up with inflation for the schools that aren’t facing funding cuts.  On top of this, Walker is diverting precious funds towards vouchers for ineffective, now-thanks-to-Walker relatively unaccountable, and often religious-based private schools and he does this based on an anti-government ideological basis (Walker and his associates also have unseemly personal and financial ties to the state’s private education lobby/industry, it should also be noted).  In general, Wisconsin under Walker has seen some of the most severe cuts for education spending in any state.  In fact, a number of school principals in the state have publicly complained about funding and curriculum issues.

When it comes to healthcare, America’s Health Rankings®, from the United Health Foundation, has provided yearly rankings of state health care longer than any other entity in the U.S.  The index measures state performance in a wide variety of metrics spread out across four major areas: behaviors, community and environment, policy, and clinical care; in 2010, before Walker came into office, the state ranked #18 overall; at the end of Walker’s first term in 2014, it has fallen to #23, the lowest rank it had ever received in the twenty-five years of the survey.  One of the three highlighted “challenges” facing the state was “low per capita public health funding.”

That does not cover every issue in the state, but it sure does cover a lot, and Wisconsin does not look too good under Walker.

Why Walker?  The Governor and the Decline of Republican Seriousness

What was Walker good at, you might ask?  Taking on unions.  That he would wage war against them was clear from the beginning.  He severely limited the ability of state workers in Wisconsin to collectively bargain.  This prompted such a severe backlash that Walker became the third governor in U.S. history to be subject to a recall election (an election that basically allows people to schedule another election to be able to remove an elected official from office before the end of that official’s term by electing someone else as a replacement).  Unlike the other two governors from America’s past, Walker won the recall election in 2012 and stayed in power.  He also managed to win reelection in a tough race in 2014.  Three months into his second term, he was able to deal a major blow to private-sector unions in Wisconsin by hurting their ability to maintain membership and influence with the passage of “right to work” legislation.  In political terms, Walker crushed unions in a state that had a long historical legacy of union strength.  Never mind that unions are good for wages, reducing inequality, and the social mobility of union workers’ children in an era where wages, inequality, and social mobility are all growing major problems; Walker has won the labor battle in Wisconsin for Republicans.

Walker also likes to brag that he won three elections in four years, including the recall election and his reelection after his first term, but multiple solid analyses have shown that these wins are not as impressive as he would have voters believe and do not mean much for prospects at winning the presidency, in part because they have occurred in off years where Democratic voter turnout has been poor.   And yet, he is a very conservative governor that was able to win in a purple state, divided between liberals and conservatives, so that is a decent counterargument.

Unless you really hate government and unions—two big targets successfully decimated by Walker—it is hard to think of Walker as anything other than an unremarkable governor at best, a mediocre governor to be in the middle, or a failure at worst.  The fact that he was (I say was because Walker’s presidential star has dimmed greatly and all but fallen from the sky) considered such a great potential candidate by Republicans says much about the Republican Party today: it is concerned more with tearing down that which its constituents hate—unions, government assistance for those less fortunate, a role for government to play in education or fairness or health care—than it is concerned with actually building anything new; it is a party that seeks to destroy and undo, not to create and do.  Thus, Scott Walker—whose biggest achievement is destroying union power in Wisconsin and thus drawing the ire of liberals nationwide—is seen as a potential president even though his record on the major issues is quite mediocre.  Thus, a Donald Trump who insults and disparages and a Dr. Ben Carson who insulted Obama to his face at a public non-partisan prayer (!) event and calls Obamacare “the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery”—two candidates who have never held political officeand whose popularity has nothing to do with workable policy solutions—are the #1 and #2 candidates, respectively, in a Republican primary campaign that seems utterly devoid of substance as far as the front-runners are concerned. 

Walker’s popularity was just an early manifestation of the same type of politics Trump and Carson are perfecting.  Walker’s problem is that, while his policies were extreme, ideological, based on hatred of things (like unions, government) and negating them as much as possible, he tried to talk the talk of a serious, policy-minded politician.  This was clearly not what the Republican faithful wanted to hear; the meaner and nastier and more critical of Obama and liberals, the better.  Too bad for Walker, his policies, and not his rhetoric, are just what they are looking for, and that Trump and Walker have no real policies embodying this since they have no policy records but their rhetoric is music to the ears of Republican primary voters.  That Ted Cruz is often #3 or #4 and often very close to generally #3 Jeb Bush—a Ted Cruz whose entire Senate career is based on hatred of government and its negation—only shows this dynamic even further.  That’s right: of the top four Republican candidates, the top two have no political policy record and have never held office, and one of the others has only a record based on obstructionism and delay; but those three out of the top four spew venom and generally without serious policy solutions, and they are loved for it.  

See, following a policy record takes time, effort, and analytical brainpower.  Getting swept up by a speech is a passive act and requires little to no effort on the part of the listener.  Thus Walker is the thinking-man’s blind-hater-of-government candidate, but Trump, Carson, and Cruz are the candidates of the blind-hater-of-government who does not really feel like thinking but much prefers to feel.  All these people seem to have one thing in common: ignore people like Jeb Bush, a moderate who is willing to think about policy, and support the people who simply want to destroy what Obama has accomplished and care more about attacking liberalism than improving their own lives, or their children’s, or their fellow citizens’.  Aside from theatrics, it is a political nihilism that the most ardent conservatives and libertarians would find refreshing.

As Walker struggles on the campaign trail, don’t expect Republicans to pick him for their nominee; as Trump and Carson show, no record is better than a meh or a bad record, and, perhaps, is better than having any record (see Bush’s problem).

Welcome to the Republicans Party in 2015.

More Election 2016 coverage from this author:

The State of Illegal Immigration 2015: Reality vs. Republican Fantasy

The Republican Field & Debate: Substance vs. Style: What Trumps What?

Don’t Dismiss The Donald: 4 Reasons Why Trump Could Win GOP Nomination

All Hail Hillary! Her Political Nature Is Just What Washington Needs

If you think your site or another would be a good place for this content please do not hesitate to reach out to me! Please feel free to share and repost on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter (you can follow me there at@bfry1981)

Anti-immigrant Americans in the mid-nineteenth century were known as “Know-Nothings,” a title well-deserved for Republicans when it comes to the immigration issue today.

Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse August 27, 2015 

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) August 27th, 2015

AMMAN — Illegal immigration is seldom not in the political spotlight these days. Prominent Republican politicians, in particular, are quick to emphasize the supposed massive harm that illegal immigration causes the United States and its legal citizens and residents. Calls to deport all illegal immigrants are now routine and regular among leading contenders for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination for the 2016 election. In fact, the consistent Republicans leader and front-runner in the polls of late, businessman and reality-TV personality Donald Trump, seems to talk about this issue more forcefully and more prominently that any other candidate. Add to this fact that he seems to be getting a nearly unlimited amount of press coverage and the situation is clear: illegal immigration is currently one of the most talked about political issues, possibly the most talked about issue, and looks to be a dominant topic throughout the 2016 election season, with or without Trump.

Leading Republicans, especially Mr. Trump, have made some bold claims about illegal immigration: who the immigrants are, what effect they are having on our country and economy, what solutions will best work towards addressing the problem. Here, we will get to bottom of the real nature of the human beings who come to work and live in the United States illegally and the effects they collectively have on America as a whole and the states where they are most numerous. Then we will look at what some of the leading Republicans are saying, and see how that squares with the reality of the situation.

The Current State of Illegal Immigration

Pew presents research that shows illegal immigrants living in the U.S. peaked after a steady increase of many years in 2007 when they reached 12.2 million people (about 4% of America’s population then). That level has since reached a relatively stable level and has declined from its 2007 peak of 12.2 million to 11.3 million in 2014 (3.5% of the U.S. population), and was as low as 11.2 million in 2012. These people represent 26% of America’s foreign-born population, down from 30% in 2007. That means that, roughly, for every four foreign-born people that enter the U.S. and stay, three do so legally. A little over half of the illegal population (52 %) are Mexicans as of 2012 but this percentage is in decline, as are their absolute numbers, to 5.9 million down from 6.4 million in 2009.  At the same time, illegal immigrants from other some other parts of world have slightly increased. After Mexico, for 2013 only El Salvador had an illegal immigrant population that is more than 5% of the total illegal population, and only slightly so. The country with the next highest number of its people living illegally in the U.S. is Guatemala, with a little under 5%. India comes next, in the middle between 4% and 3%, followed by Honduras and then China, with a bit under 3% each. The only other country that broke 2% was the Philippines, and only slightly. The Dominican Republic follows at close to 2%, with South Korea slightly behind. The only other countries that are each contributing at least 1% of the total illegal U.S. population, in descending order, are Ecuador, Colombia, Haiti, Vietnam, Peru, and Brazil, the last three at 1% and the others only slightly above this.

As of 2013, almost sixteen percent had arrived just recently (less than five years prior), over 24% had been in the U.S. from five to nine years, over 28% percent had been in the U.S. from ten to fourteen years, 14.5% had been in America for fifteen to nineteen years, and 17% for at least twenty years. Combining elements of this data, we can see that in 2013 over 40% of illegal immigrants had been living in the U.S. for less than a decade, while almost 32% had been here for at least fifteen years. The largest number of illegal immigrants, over 28% of the total, arrived from 2000 to 2004 and about 24% arrived from 2005-2009. This means that about a little over one-half the total illegal immigrant population arrived in the decade of 2000-2009 (for those looking for political “blame,” George W. Bush was president for almost that entire time, meaning more of the current illegal immigrants arrived under his presidency than under any other president). About 17% arrived from 1995-1999, and about 11% from 1990 to 1994 (28% overall from that decade). About 12% have arrived from 2010 on, and only about 8.5% before 1990, although it should be remembered that in 1986 the Reagan Administration gave legal status to about 2.7 million illegal immigrants who had entered the U.S. before 1982 after Congress passed a law authorizing Reagan to do so in 1986. Further action by Reagan and his successor, George H. W. Bush, added to this number and brought it closer to three million than 2.7 million. In addition, many Cuban immigrants have legal status in the U.S. as the special situation between Cuba and the U.S. over the decades since Castro’s revolution gave way to special policy, law, and agreements for people arriving to the U.S. from Cuba, giving them legal status in ways that if they were not specifically Cuban would have left them part of the illegal immigrant community. As of 2013, over 1.1 million people born in Cuba were living in the U.S, the product of a half-century of these special policies.

The recent decline in illegal immigration is in part due to the Great Recession; since 2009, about 350,000 people each year (100,000 of them Mexican) have entered the U.S. illegally, but this represents a dramatic decline in the number of immigrants from over a decade ago, when far more people were coming to the U.S. illegally and far more illegal immigrants as a share of the total pool were recent arrivals, with the proportion of illegal immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for at least a decade almost doubling since 2000 while the proportion who have been in the U.S. for less than five years being more than halved since 2000.

Also, from 2009 to 2012, the illegal immigration population fell in fourteen states and rose in only seven. Illegal populations decreased in Oregon, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, New York, Massachusetts, and grew in Idaho, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Jew Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and Florida. The six states of Texas, Florida, California, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey together have 60 % of the illegal immigrant population in the country, and Nevada is the state with the highest proportion of its population (8 %) consisting of illegal immigrants. Nevada also stands out as the state with the highest percentage of K-12 students who have at least one illegal immigrant parent (18%), while next-highest are the states of California, Texas, and Arizona, where that number is between 13% and 11%. Overall in the U.S., about 7% of all K-12 students fall under this category, with almost four-fifths of those being born in the U.S.  Illegal immigrants also make up 5.1 % of the labor force, a rather high percentage considering they just account for 3.5% of the population. The states with the highest percentage of illegal immigrants in their labor forces (ranging from 10% to 8%) are Nevada, California, Texas, New Jersey, and, again, Nevada leads the pack with 10% (for those wanting more data on illegal immigrant populations state-by-state you can look here and here).

As far as their socio-economic status, in 2013 illegal immigrants were almost twice as likely be living in poverty (27.6%) than the population as whole (14.5%, taken from census data including illegal immigrants), are far less educated—only 13.6 % of illegal immigrant adults had at least a college degree and only a little more than half had successfully finished high school compared with 31% and almost nine out of ten for the whole population, respectively—and are much less likely to have health insurance, with only about one-third of illegal immigrants having coverage compared with over 86.8% of Americans in general.

Republicans might be particularly surprised to learn about illegal immigrants’ contributions to the U.S. system overall. At the federal level, their tax contributions far outweigh any financial payments they receive. For example, Illegal immigrants pay about $15 billion in payroll taxes each year into Social Security, but only take about $1 billion in benefits, and over the years they have paid about $300 billion into Social Security, accounting for 10% of the contributions even though they are only about 3.5% of the population (and never more than their 4%-2007-peak) and are only about 5% of the labor force. They also paid $11.84 billion in 2012 alone in state and local taxes with about 8% of their income (compared with 5.4% of the income for the richest 1% of Americans). Only a small percentage of illegal immigrants receive any type of federal benefits, even though they still often pay payroll taxes that go to Social Security and Medicare. Giving all illegal immigrants temporary legal work permits could bring in as much as $2.2 billion more in state and local taxes. President Obama is trying to do this for a 5.2 out of America’s 11.4 million illegal immigrants through executive action (which would generate about $845 million in new state and local taxes if fully implemented), despite lawsuits from twenty-six states, twenty-four of which have Republican governors, that have put his program on hold.

While there is some variation at the state and local level, state and local costs associated with illegal immigration are an overall small percentage of state and local spending, and have only a “modest” effect on state and local budgets (averaging 5% of the relevant programs), an impact that is greatly offset by state and local taxes paid by illegal immigrants and by federal assistance for covering these costs, though not wholly offset, with some states pulling in modestly less revenue relative to expenditures related to illegal immigrants and other states (e.g., Texas) pulling in significantly morerevenue from them than they spend on them. These numbers only relate to state revenues and expenditures, and do not even factor in other much-harder-to-measure but very significant economic benefits for the states’ economies (e.g., illegal immigrant consumer spending, productivity and contribution to states’ GDPs, and the costs employers save by paying relatively low wages to them).

Thus, for America as a whole, illegal immigration would seem to bring in more economic benefits than costs.

As for crime, immigrants tend to be imprisoned less often than native-born Americans (one-fifth the rate of native-born Americans and decreasing significantly over the years), seeming to have either or a combination of less of a crime-committing tendency or being “more responsive to deterrent effects” and going out of their way to avoid any problems with law enforcement. This is also true across all immigrant groups, from Indians and Bulgarians to Mexicans and Guatemalans. However, it should also be noted that the data of this study was not able to distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants. Crime also decreased nationally as illegal immigration increased and crime decreased even more so in states with large immigrant populations, with immigration even seeming to actually decrease crime in cities. Even statistics that show proportions of illegal immigrants in federal prisons are relatively high for violent crimes are incredibly misleading, as almost all of these crimes are handled by state and local authorities; for example, the statistic that illegal immigrants in 2013 were 9.2% of all federal prisoners held on murder charges might seem bad, but this only involved eight cases. In short, there is no data linking illegal immigrants or specific groups of them, such as Mexicans, with higher rates of committing violent or drug-related crimes than the native-born American population. In fact, four out of five drug-related arrests by the U.S. Border Patrol—and this does not include normal domestic arrests, only those made by the Border Patrol—involved American citizens. This suggests the problems are not so much about Mexicans bringing drugs into the U.S. from Mexico, but, rather, Americans bringing drugs in from Mexico and, more generally, the high American demand for illegal drugs.

Many Republicans “Know-Nothing” About Immigration As an Issue or How to Handle It and Their Harsh Approach to Immigrants Matches Their Harsh Approach to Everything Else

The current leader—and dominantly so, from polls to media coverage—among the Republican presidential candidates, real estate mogul and reality-TV-personality Donald Trump—has called for deporting all 11+ million illegal immigrants, as well as any of their American-born children, whom are derisively called “anchor babies” by Trump and those with harsh views on immigration but whom are widely accepted to be defined as citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.  Such a move would cost at least hundreds of billions of dollars to well over a half-trillion and take as long as twenty years, and if associated economic costs are included, could cost closer to $1 trillion for America overall.  Trump’s comments also suggest he clearly believes that many illegal immigrants are criminals: drug traffickers, murderers, rapists, etc. But Trump’s plan and views on illegal immigration, like many Republicans and conservatives’ views on this issue, are based on a highly inaccurate fantasy of “false assumptions” that is light on facts and heavy on mythology. Trump seems to be dragging other candidates down with him on this issue, too.

Critics of the Tea Party and the Republican Party often find a dearth of rationality and practical or forward thinking; that in 2015 the number one issue in the Republican nomination contest—illegal immigration—is, as noted above, a problem that has dramatically lessened in severity, volume, and proportionality has done little to reduce the incessant importance of this issue in the conservative/Republican mind. With America as a nation facing real-life severe, looming crises and with most of the of the oxygen in the political discussion of one of America’s two major political parties being burned focusing on a problem that is becoming far less of an actual problem while other problems only increase with severity, there is little to respect in that party—the Republican Party—as being worthy of serious consideration for taking over the reins of governance of our modern super-state replete with crises requiring serious, rational, and grown-up solutions. America is hardly the only place where such xenophobia is growing, for one only needs to look at Europe in recent years, for example, to dispel such a notion. And as alarming as the recent nativist wave should be for all Americans and people in the world for whom a well-governed, rational America tackling its crises head-on and being an example worthy of emulation and alliance throughout the world, the emergence of xenophobia in this time of crises should also hardly be surprising. There is nothing new in America having a fluctuating undercurrent of nativism, or anti-immigrant feeling, hinged with anything from a hint of intolerance to outright bigotry and violence (just watch Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York to get a loose sense for this vibe in years past), but in the year 2015, to see a party—its leaders and base of constituents—so crudely consumed by blind, ignorant, and irrational fear and hatred of “the other” is banal in the most tedious and hackneyed sense.

While many of us are ready to move forward into the twentieth century, too many others are stuck in the nineteenth. Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton came out with a bold new plan to tackle the $1.2 trillion student loan debt-bubble and college financing, put forth a detailed economic plan that emphasizes raising median and women’s income, proposed a bold environmental/energy policy that even exceeds President Obama’s recently proposed plan, laid out an immigration policy that would give millions of hard working, law-abiding illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, and spoke out passionately about the racism in American society and in its criminal justice system.  A Republican Party that lost the last two presidential elections by losing a majority of all American gender and ethnic categories by more than ten percentage points (and often far more) except males as a group and whites as a group  is running on defining an exclusive America that rejects or ignores others—illegal immigrants, homosexuals, the poor and uninsured (Senator Marco Rubio and Governor Scott Walker both just released health care plans that would dramatically lessen assistance for the poor and uninsured, those people most in need of healthcare)—is now seeking to build a community and constituency of Americans based on existing affluence, privileges, rights, and opportunities and that takes care of it members through the distribution of benefits through the system while excluding from these benefits those who are currently shut outside of this community.  How this party expects to win in the face of changing American demographics that very much do not favor white voters and will only make such strategieseven less likely to succeed than in the past is a mystery for which no one has an answer. It is the 2012 election’s “makers vs. takers” debate all over again, and is the political equivalent of a town election campaign based on shifting resources to the nice, gated communities of homeowners and away from those outside these gated community—immigrants, the poor, the uninsured, perpetual renters, homeless, and those struggling while working part-time jobs with no benefits.

For such a campaign, America is a gated community where those with means should band together; in the immigration debate, this is about keeping “non-Americans” out of the community and shutting the gate, but this theme runs rampant through all the other Republicans’ policies, generally speaking, except those who are to be shut out are no longer illegal immigrants without American citizenship, but American citizens of much lesser means looking for ways into the gated community but whose chances are all but crushed by a society that keeps punishing them for their lack of means. All this is part of a general redistribution of wealth, energy, and resources away from the needy and to the affluent. If many Republicans want to deport millions of illegal immigrants, this same crowd also wants to deport millions of Americans not from the soil of our nation but from the rolls of welfare, Medicaid, educational assistance, affirmative action, Obamacare, and other programs that make a major difference in the lives of those Americans without means. Thus, immigration warfare and class warfare are in many ways one in the same, from the same exclusive heart and spirit that captures so much of today’s conservative movement.

One final point: 72% of Americans are against forcing illegal immigrants to leave America, with only 27% against letting them stay; this even includes a majority of Republicans (56%), but you would not know this from listening to many of the leading Republican candidates.

Time for Republicans to Look to Lincoln

In thinking about immigration as an issue, perhaps the greatest Republican—Abraham Lincoln—can be the most instructive even 150 years later. In Lincoln’s time and before the Civil War, a new political party emerged, popularly called the “Know Nothings” and officially called the (Native) American Party (it doesn’t get more nativist than that for an official title!). They were virulently anti-immigrant and would likely capture the same people that in today’s America that are so angry and paranoid about immigration. For Lincoln, the anti-immigrant sentiment was dangerously similar to proslavery sentiment.  In a speech given shortly after Independence Day in 1858, Lincoln noted how that holiday was often celebrated by the descents of the Americans who fought the Revolution as a day to celebrate both their ancestors and their connection to these ancestors. He continues:

But after we have done all this we have not yet reached the whole. There is something else connected with it. We have besides these men—descended by blood from our ancestors—among us perhaps half our people who are not descendants at all of these men, they are men who have come from Europe—German, Irish, French and Scandinavian—men that have come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equals in all things. If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, [loud and long continued applause] and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world. [Applause.]

Thus, for Lincoln, a shared love of freedom and equality within immigrant and native-born alike united all as Americans. But also for Lincoln, discriminating against a black man in America was the same as discriminating against a German man or anyone else:

Now, sirs, for the purpose of squaring things with this idea of “don’t care if slavery is voted up or voted down,” for sustaining the Dred Scott decision [A voice—“Hit him again”], for holding that the Declaration of Independence did not mean anything at all, we have Judge Douglas giving his exposition of what the Declaration of Independence means, and we have him saying that the people of America are equal to the people of England. According to his construction, you Germans are not connected with it. Now I ask you in all soberness, if all these things, if indulged in, if ratified, if confirmed and endorsed, if taught to our children, and repeated to them, do not tend to rub out the sentiment of liberty in the country, and to transform this Government into a government of some other form. Those arguments that are made, that the inferior race are to be treated with as much allowance as they are capable of enjoying; that as much is to be done for them as their condition will allow. What are these arguments? They are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world. You will find that all the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden. That is their argument, and this argument of the Judge is the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it. Turn in whatever way you will—whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent, and I hold if that course of argumentation that is made for the purpose of convincing the public mind that we should not care about this, should be granted, it does not stop with the negro. I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it where will it stop. If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man? If that declaration is not the truth, let us get the Statute book, in which we find it and tear it out!

In an 1859 letter of Lincoln’s in which he wrote why he would not support certain anti-immigrant initiatives, Lincoln expressed his disdain of any measure based on the exclusion of people:

Understanding the spirit of our institutions to aim at the elevation of men, I am opposed to whatever tends to degrade them. I have some little notoriety for commiserating the oppressed condition of the negro; and I should be strangely inconsistent if I could favor any project for curtailing the existing rights of white men, even though born in different lands, and speaking different languages from myself.

An earlier 1855 letter has Lincoln expressing a deep sadness with the rise of anti-immigrant sentiment:

I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that “ all men are created equal.” We now practically read it “all men are created equal,  except negroes.” When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all men are created equal, except negroes,  and foreigners, and catholics.” When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy.

Well, it sure seems Lincoln would feel despair in reaction to his own Republican Party today on the issue of immigration (not to even mention others). As usual with Lincoln, I find myself as a writer humbled in reading him, and at this point I cannot “add or detract” to his poetic words. Perhaps no other American can so beautifully and simply express how anti-American it is to be anti-immigrant. Trump and other Republican presidential hopefuls are missing the facts of reality in their framing of this issue. But when it comes to the spirit of their sentiment, it is their own Lincoln they should read to can see how deeply wrong they truly are.

More Election 2016 coverage from this author:

The Republican Field & Debate: Substance vs. Style: What Trumps What?

Don’t Dismiss The Donald: 4 Reasons Why Trump Could Win GOP Nomination

All Hail Hillary! Her Political Nature Is Just What Washington Needs

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Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse August 13, 2015 

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) August 13th, 2015

GETTY IMAGES/CNN

AMMAN — The Debate last night was not the farcical circus it could have been.  Aside from Megan Kelly’s activism (how was it the job of her as a moderator to put in a big plug for candidate Carly Fiorina and her standout performance from the earlier second-tier kids-table-debate as the main debate for the top ten began?), she, Bret Baier, and Chris Wallace did a good job of keeping the debate lively and interesting with pointed, challenging questions and also kept the more rowdy candidates in line.  They were overall very fair, giving each candidate chances to shine but also putting them on the spot.  Trump was leading in all the polls so it is fair that he got more airtime, and most of the other candidates got the time they deserved relative to their standings in the polls and how close they are in these polls to each other.

The New York Times

The exceptions to the overall fairness were Scott Walker and Rand Paul: Walker was third in many pre-debate polls and second in others, while Paul had tended to also be at the top just behind Walker, Bush, and Trump, so the moderators should not have allowed them to be the next-to-last and last candidates in terms of speaking time.  But still, the debate was good television and surprisingly had a good amount of substance.  Below is an attempt to rank the ten candidates from the main debate (plus Carly Fiorina whose performance was pretty much the only major takeaway from the kids-table-debate of the bottom seven) in terms of substance, then style.

Substance rankings:

#1 Governor John Kasich (OH)

I’ve got to be honest; I had no idea who the hell John Kasich was before this debate.  But I do now, and I was very impressed.  He seems to be 2016’s Jon Huntsman: a substantive, serious, accomplished, sensible, rational Republican who is not afraid to compromise to get results and who does not run on hatred or discrimination in any way.  Of course, all this means that he has zero chance of being chosen by the Republican base as their champion since they seem to abhor most, it not all, of his qualities, even if it would improve their chances of winning in the general election.  Kasich is the popular governor of Ohio.  He was one of a small number of Republican governors who supported Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, and gave a very rational and eloquent defense of this decision, talking about the relationship of the mentally ill, prisons, and emergency-room-care costs to Medicaid.  He did a great job referring to many specific achievements with specific numbers, discussing his record of success in Ohio on multiple fronts with ease.  He also touted his record as a congressman in Washington as Chairman of the House Budget Committee, where he was instrumental in helping to achieve a balanced federal budget with the Clinton Administration and Congress. He showed moderation on both gay rights—saying it was time to accept the Supreme Court ruling and move on—and on immigration, a moderation that will be key in the general election as the election takes place within the United States of America, not just the states of the rebellion of the so-called “Confederate States of America.” This man should be leading in the polls, but the fact that he is not says much about today’s Republican Party. He seems to be the most well-rounded candidate, with national and state experience and a record of balancing budgets and expanding healthcare.

#2 Governor Christ Christie (NJ)

Christie had a lot of details on his record of service—from being a U.S. Attorney that was appointed on September 10th, 2001, who helped to lock up and prosecute terrorists under the Patriot Act to being a governor dealing with tough budgetary and economic issues and having to govern in a blue state—that he weaved in comfortably and impressively into his answers.  He had a lot of specifics to discuss but was able to tie each of them into broad themes as well.   Christie was very eloquent and passionate when discussing everything from terrorism to balancing budgets and dealing with social security, and made an impassioned case for surveillance in a feisty exchange with Rand Paul.  Paul made good points, but Christie won stylistically and many would also say substantively.

#3 Senator Marco Rubio (FL)

Senator Rubio gave a good talk about immigration, talking about the need for comprehensive reform, and demonstrated his knowledge and experience on the issue and getting quite specific.  He talked about his own personal, family, and political background—weaving each one into a compelling narrative—and he talked about how the economy has changed dramatically just in the last few years in a way no other candidate did.  He was clear and sharp, addressed what he was asked directly, and had clever and effective attacks on Hillary Clinton.  He definitely had one of the most substantive performances in this debate.

#4 Senator Rand Paul (KY)

Paul’s points on ISIS were misleading, but he made a solid case for civil liberties and his defense of them as well as for trimming spending.  Yet his line about wanting to “collect more records form terrorists, but less records from innocent Americans” was, to use Christie’s words, ridiculous, because, as Christie also pointed out, “how are you supposed to know” people are criminals or terrorists before they commit their acts,  and that’s why some degree of surveillance is necessary.  That’s not to say that his point was invalid, or that Christie’s points don’t deserve some scrutiny, and Paul made valid points on surveillance and defended them well, even if Christie arguably got the better of him. Paul’s opposition to the Iran deal made absolutely no sense.  Still, even with his even performance, Paul still brought more substance to the table than most.

#5-#6 Tie: (former) Governor Jeb Bush (FL) and Governor Scott Walker (WI)

Governor Bush did a great job defending the humanity of illegal immigrants while still making a competent case for how to deal with illegal immigration.  He did a good job selling what he claims are his achievements in education during his governorship, but that record is actually spotty and questionable at best.  He answered the question on him being his own man well, gave complete answers that addressed what he was asked even if he stumbled verbally.  He sort of flubbed a question about his approving of a Bloomberg charity budget that included funding for Planned Parenthood (the current overblown Satan in Republican politics) but then ended that question with a strong defense of his overall “pro-life” record. Hard to say he did “great” or even “good,” he did ok.

Scott Walker was weak on immigration, against the only practical solution—comprehensive immigration reform—and instead doubling down on his closing of any path to citizenship for illegal immigrants currently in the country.  His came off as extremely anti-labor/union.  He is just as impractical on abortion, calling for a total ban with no exceptions.  With all his solutions, he was for extreme positions that are generally untenable in the general election.  He had little substantive to say, and was unable to answer even a basic question about foreign policy (likely because he knows almost nothing about foreign policy) and like the other candidates, and made no sense on Iran.

#7 (up from the kids-table-debate) Carly Fiorina

Though surrounded by generally weak competition that helped her to look stronger than she actually is, Fiorina was still able to highlight her international business experience to her advantage, highlighting her personal relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and King Abdullah of Jordan and surprisingly giving herself multiple strong moments on everything from ISIS to the economy.  As the only woman candidate for a party nervous about Hillary, many Republicans are desperate to see her rise enough to at least be vice-presidential-running-mate material.  If she does end up winning either the nomination or a VP slot, this debate will be the moment where people will say it all began.  Still, it remains to be see if she can share the stage and perform well enough with the big boys.  But look for her to be in the top ten for debate #2 and, perhaps to become one of the more substantive candidates in the overall Republican race.

#8 (former) Governor Mike Huckabee (AR)       

Love it or hate it, Huckabee’s invoking of the 5th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution represent a creative, bold, and somewhat rational approach for conservatives to abortion and will certainly win approval from them.  He looked weak compared to Christie on the issue on social security reform, playing for sound bites instead of substance.  He did not speak much in depth on issues, instead appealing to a more general sense of the way America should be governed.  Definitely not one of the more substantive candidates.

#9 Donald Trump

Christie accused Paul of blowing a lot of hot air, but without question the most hot air was blown by Donald Trump.  His perhaps his most substantive point was making it clear that he opposed the Iraq War back in 2004 because he said it would destabilize the region.  He also made intelligent comments about single-payer healthcare working in Canada and Scotland and with getting rid of restricting the healthcare choices available that exist because of a person’s location.  At the same time, theatrically is what characterized the rest of his extensive airtime, no substance.  Lots of tough talk and generalities, but little specific for policy analysts to consider.

#10 Senator Ted Cruz (TX)

Senator Cruz resembled not so much a living, breathing human being but a doll where you pull the string and the doll spews out a number of canned, recorded, unoriginal lines.  All Cruz managed to do was rile up the base and impress no one else.  With position after position, he advocates for extremist position only supported by the right-wing base of the Republican Party that have no chance of passing Congress of being supported by the American people as a whole.  With such a lack of substance, it is not surprising that he goes all out with demagoguery.  His focus and solution for ISIS is a semantic one about focusing on Islam and emphasizing the Islamic nature of ISIS, which would likely be counterproductive by giving ISIS more legitimacy by constantly emphasizing their Islamic aspects as opposed to other aspects, regardless of that fact that ISIS clearly draws inspiration from extremist interpretations of Islam, as many religious extremists from many religionstoday draw and in the past have drawn inspiration from extremist interpretations.

#11 Dr. Ben Carson

While not tripping over his words like Jeb Bush, Carson had almost nothing (and perhaps nothing) substantive to say.  He got his mention of the “Saul Alinsky” model which will mean nothing to anyone outside the Republican base during a general election.  He either just did not answer the questions he was asked or spoke in such vague generalities that no one could have a clue what he would specifically do as president.  Using Christianity and the Bible as the basis for his tax plan showed why this man is not one that anyone should take seriously (unless they are discussing neuroscience).  Just being smart—the man is a neurosurgeon—does not qualify someone for being president.  Being a neurosurgeon in this race (the man said Obamacare was the worst thing to happen to America since slavery) seems to be Dr. Carson’s version of staying at a Holiday Inn Express…

Style Rankings:

#1-#2-#3-#4 Tie: Trump, Rubio, Christie, Kasich

Trump was able to throw everything the moderators threw at him and threw it right back at them.  He remained unbowed and unapologetic and arguably didn’t come off the worse for any of his kerfuffles with candidates or moderators and rhetorically got the better of anyone who crossed him.  The hostile questioning played right into his narrative of being a victim of the media and the Establishment, and he dominated the debate overall, getting the most time and the most coverage/buzz.  It may have been a lot of political hot air, but it was hot air at its best, wildly entertaining and engrossing.

Rubio badly needed his good performance from tonight.  From his nervous, infamous State Of the Union response speech’s water bottle antics to his numerous appearances in Senate committee hearings in which he came off as a vapid lightweight who was out of his depth, there was considerable and very legitimate concern about whether this man could hold himself together under the spotlight, retain composure, and be a man of substance.  Well, for the first time on the national stage, he did just that.  He must have spent a lot of time working on his flaws, prepping, and practicing because the Marco Rubio I saw that night was a different man: poised, confident, funny, and ready for primetime, with some of the most memorable moments from the debate, particularly with his jabs at Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.  It was his finest public performance since becoming a U.S. senator and he since seems to have climbed to the top tier of candidates as a result, with strong boosts in multiple national and state polls.

Christie had a great night, though it may not help him much as he is disliked by the Republican base.  Still, he was very passionate and could weave effective and emotional storytelling into statistics and policy details with ease.  He came back from a very cheap shot about hugging Obama from Paul and got the better of him in that exchange on both (arguably) substance and style.  He was able to handle very tough questions and turn them into positive laundry lists of his accomplishments.  He came off as strong, intelligent, articulate, passionate, and able to handle anything anyone throws at him.

Kasich stayed direct, positive and hopeful throughout.  He declined to attack Trump when the moderator pitched him a big fastball down-the-middle for him to be able to do so.  His overall message was inclusive and not divisive, even included reaching out to minorities that are less successful, and even though he is against gay marriage, he showed that he would show and has shown respect and tolerance for homosexual Americans in a way few if any of the other candidates have.  In fact, his whole style advocates a conservatism that leaves a big place for love and caring for people and a big heart.  In a party that often seem heartless towards the poor, minorities, and illegal immigrants, this is a message that will resound on the national stage.  Unfortunately for him, it is unlikely to resound among the Republican base.  He played his home crowd (the debate was held in Ohio) to his advantage, and presented a good balance between wonkish statistical policy accomplishments and a tender, caring heart.  His overall strong performance seems to have helped him in New Hampshire and Michigan, but not anywhere else so far or nationally.  This is not to the credit of the Republican Party and their voters.

#5 (guest-from-the-kids-table) Fiorina

There is no question that Carly Fiorina was the standout performance of the kids-table-debate of the bottom seven (out of seventeen!) candidates.  On one level, this is a big deal: barring some awful implosion, she unquestionably will be part of the adult-dinner-party next debate.  She was very articulate and good at delivering her talking points and stood far above almost everyone else on that stage, save for Santorum (see the note at the end).  And she was able to weave her experience into her answers in a way that was (rhetorically) impressive, and even managed a few decent jokes.  But at the same time, we have to remember 1.) that she was standing out when surrounded by six bottom-feeders and 2.) that no one at either debate saw her as a threat or felt the need to attack her; it was a pretty smooth ride for her without adversity.  It very much remains to be seen if she can come off as poised and polished when she is under attack from rivals and surrounded by far more accomplished and theatrically-savvy candidates.  The evidence suggests she cannot; she was crushed in her U.S. Senate campaign against California Senator Barbara Boxer in 2010 and on numerous appearances on Real Time with Bill Maher during extended discussions, she has been unable to go past surface-level talking points or discuss anything with a degree of depth and detail that shows an accurate understanding of what she is talking about, even if she sounds better than most Republican candidates.  She is also quite vulnerable on her business record, having been fired as CEO of Hewlett-Packard.  Still, Fiorina may have gained as much as anybody from the debates, maybe even more than any other candidates.  Especially being the sole woman and, thus, a weapons against Democratic charges that Republicans are anti-women, do not expect the party or voters to cast her off the island anytime soon.

#6 Carson

Like Mr. Cruz below, Carson utterly lacked substance.  Yet he was a crowd favorite, delivering heartfelt religious sentiment and amusing applause lines.  He came off as sincere and was able to stay above the sniping occurring between other candidates.  He seemed very much the non-politician (a strong asset to the Republican base) and seemed very natural and at ease on stage as well as very genuine and authentic.  He gave a particularly eloquent message about a person’s brain—not his skin color-defining him or her (though this type of answer does risk downplaying the very real racial problems that exist in America).  Though he seemed unable or unwilling to answer multiple questions, he still let his charm, ease, and message come out clearly.  If we were grading only with style points that the Republican base cares about, Carson would be ranked even higher, and this is beyond doubt as he has surged in most post-debate polls, even as high as second-place in Iowa!  To non-Republicans, he is not someone to be taken seriously; yet it is likely that the Republican base’s love of him means he could have staying-power long into this race.  Frankly, I was ready to write him off as a candidate after his debate performance, but (full disclosure) I am a liberal Democrat and I clearly underestimated his popularity with the base and how his answers would play with that base.  And as an African-American, his simply being in the race is ammunition against Democrats’ charges of the Republican Party being racist and only a party for whites.

#7 Huckabee

Huckabee was humorous and charming in his usual way, smiling throughout and getting plenty of folksy and faith-related comments out there in ways that are sure to continue to endear him to the base.  He certainly did not hurt himself even if he did not stand out.  The crowd consistently warmed to him and he did end the debate with one of the best lines of the night, seeming to hit Trump powerfully and harshly but, actually, in the end, revealing his attack was on Clinton, not Trump.  Yet that was also his only real standout moment besides the abortion answer (see above), as his other answers were predictable and unmemorable if decent.  He didn’t do badly at all, but will have to do much better if he is to rise above the pack.  Still, as a popular Fox News TV personality and as the man who came in second in the Republican primaries of 2008 to John McCain, it will be interesting to see where he is in a few months if other candidates drop out.

#8 Cruz

If Cruz’s lines didn’t come off as so rehearsed, forced, and canned, I might have tied him with Carson or Huckabee.  Both he and Carson utterly lacked substance, but Cruz really came off as a demagogic manipulator.  His lines went over well with the audience, but will only serve to alienate him more with the general public.  Still, he, like Carson, has seen something of a bounce post-debate, though not as big or consistent as Carson’s.  Love him or hate him, he the Republican base loves him and Cruz knows how to retain at least some significant support among it.

#9 Paul

Paul had a very uneven night.  Yes, he got his applause and moments defending civil liberties and smaller government, as was expected, but he didn’t necessarily come off better with his attacks on Trump and Christie.  He had less speaking time than anyone else, but also had moments where he could have given longer answers used more time and declined to do so.  Direct and simple—like his approach to government—but also leaving him a bit on the sidelines.  He showed he could pick a fight, but chose the two brawler candidates best able to respond harshly back—Trump and Christie—to get into fights with and thus, in the end, it’s hard to say he had a good night.

#10-11 Tie: Bush-Walker

Though their performances differed, they ended about equalizing each other; where Walker may have been more articulate, his performance often fell flat and to muted applause with a few exceptions, which were mostly him making jokes about Hillary; where Bush maybe got a better response from the crowd, he stumbled over his words consistently (perhaps the bar is low because of his association with his brother?)  Neither did any serious damage to themselves or anyone else with their performances, but neither really gained anything either, and others’ gains (e.g., Carson, Fiorina, Rubio) already seem to be coming at their expense (their support has dropped in multiple post-debate polls) more than any other candidates. Both ran like they were the frontrunner, trying to not do badly/lose as opposed to trying to win.  Yet, since neither are the frontrunner, this didn’t make sense and it did not help.  Even if they didn’t do badly per se, not standing out has meant they have already begun losing support to other candidates.

Honorable Mention: (former) Senator Rick Santorum (PA)

Don’t completely give up on Rick Santorum.  He is very intelligent, articulate, passionate, genuine, competent, and has a level of charisma.  He came in second behind Romney in 2012 in the Republican primaries.  He has a fairly uniquely moderate economic message among Republicans even if he is socially extremely conservative.  If anyone makes it out of the kids-table-debate-level besides Fiorina, my money would be on him.

****

Thus, we see a war here with substance versus style in the two very different rankings one would have to give the winners of substance vs. style in these debates even if one disagrees with my specific rankings.  Kasich, Christie, and Rubio would be the best combination of both, though it would seem that only Rubio has a shot among those three candidates.  Part of me would love to be proven wrong.  Two things are for certain: 1.) already, this race is full of surprises and we are still about half a year away from the first contest in Iowa, and 2.) as we watch all this unfold, there will be more surprises yet to come.  Part of me is rooting for substance to win for the sake of the quality of America’s politics, and part of me for entertaining, substance-less style, since my personal preference is for a Democrat to win in 2016.  We’ll have to stay tuned to see what Trumps what and who Trumps who for the Republican nomination and for the presidency.

More Election 2016 coverage from this author:

Don’t Dismiss The Donald: 4 Reasons Why Trump Could Win GOP Nomination

All Hail Hillary! Her Political Nature Is Just What Washington Needs

If you think your site or another would be a good place for this content please do not hesitate to reach out to me! Please feel free to share and repost on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter (you can follow me there at@bfry1981)

*****

You may not respect his message, his positions, or the man himself, but you must respect his candidacy for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.

 Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse August 10, 2015 

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) August 10th, 2015 UPDATED (see bottom)

Also published by Stupidparty Math v. Myth.

AP

AMMAN — In the ideal America, egocentric and eccentric billionaire and reality-TV personality Donald Trump would never have a realistic chance at getting the nomination of one of America’s two major parties to be its candidate for president of the United States. Many liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, would not dispute this statement.

However, this is not an ideal world, and America is far from an ideal society too. If you don’t understand the very real reasons why Donald Trump has a real chance at being the Republican Party’s presidential candidate, then you don’t understand the Republican Party, American politics, or American society. Below are the main reason why Trump isn’t going away and why he has a real shot at winning the Republican primaries, if not the general election.

1.) The Republican Party Is-A-Changin’

The Republican Party is in a state of open division and flux, and for all you Game of Thrones fans, remember: “Chaos is a ladder” (spoilers for GoT in this link). The whole significance of the Tea Party movement is that it was a bloody, forceful attempt to pry the steering wheel out of the hands of the establishment and the elites who had been in tight control of the party for years. This peaked in some ways with the 2010 midterm elections in which extremist Tea Party candidates (Christine O’Donnell, anyone?) lost some key and very winnable Senate races to vulnerable Democrats but still managed to win many elections and were the major factor in the Republicans taking the House of Representatives from the Democrats. However, Tea Party candidates were thought to have gone too far in the 2012 election, hurting the Republican Party and even Mitt Romney in Obama’s reelection. Much of the conventional wisdom maintains that the Republicans learned their lesson from the 2012 Tea Party-driven electoral disaster, and have since moderated. What has actually happened is that the Republican Party has lurched to the right, with the Republican Establishment coopting the Tea Party style and message (and lack of substance) out of the fear of being “primaried”: incumbents losing in primaries before even having a chance to go toe-to-toe with a Democrat and losing to extremists within their own party who accused them of being too moderate. The party was hardly moderate before, but even now, it still falls short of the extreme rightist platform and style envisioned by true Tea Partiers. So there is still a war going on within the Republican Party; before Trump’s meteoric rise, this was perhaps best exemplified by the clash between freshman Senator (and all-around disingenuous charlatan) Ted Cruz on the one hand, and more moderate republicans like Speaker of the House John Boehner, Representative Peter King, Senator John McCain, and the Republican leadership on the other. Cruz is hardly alone in his extremism, though: the likes of Representatives Louie Gohmert and Steve King are but a few examples.

Into this struggle for the soul of the party strode Donald Trump. Among other things, he is very aggressively taking on the Republican Establishment in a way that electrifies the base, insulting John McCain, feuding with Rupert Murdoch, attacking both George W. and Jeb Bush, and, in addition, he has enough money (“TEN BILLION DOLLARS,” to quote Trump directly) that he is not at all dependent on the establishment for financing or support. Trump also has no experience as part of the Washington, DC, political machine, thus, he can avoid having to check the rather unpopular box of “Washington insider.” So can Jeb Bush, but he has the last name Bush (and will be reluctant to criticize his brother or father) and will be tainted with that label as a result. Other candidates who want to draw the non-Washington insider vote will most certainly be competing with Trump.

2.) Divided They Fall

History is full of weird winners. In particular, it is not difficult at all to find examples of when one faction or person was able to triumph because its numerous opponents could not unite and stop fighting among themselves. Ancient Rome, for example, was eventually brought down by much weaker “barbarian” factions because its intermittent civil wars among different Romans devastated Rome’s strength and left it vulnerable in ways it should never have been. The Egyptian opposition to Mohammed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood could not unite in elections during the Arab Spring, and thus paved the way for Morsi’s victory and troubled presidency, which, in turn, paved the way for General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s countercoup/counterrevolution and the destruction of a nascent Egyptian democracy. Al Gore lost to George W. Bush because immature liberals in Florida and New Hampshire voted for Ralph Nader—a realistically hopeless liberal alternative to Gore and thus a merely symbolic vote that gave Bush victory in both states—because they viewed voting as a masturbatory act of self-gratification instead of a duty to vote with an eye towards the real world impact of voting and not as act designed to make you most pleased with yourself and your conscience, the real world be damned… I’m sure you can think of other examples easily.

As for the Republican primaries, there are currently seventeen Republican candidates. Though Donald trump is nowhere close to garnering support from a majority of Republicans, he still has a commanding lead over his rivals in the latest round of scientific national polling, and even if a full third of the candidates dropped out tomorrow, that would still leave ten other candidates among whom to divide the non-trump vote. The latest polls have trump with the support of about 25% of Republicans nationally. That means the other 75% of support is currently divided among the other sixteen candidates (if that vote is divided equally, each candidate would have only roughly 4.7% of the vote). Jeb Bush, in second place, barely broke into double-digits, and the other fifteen candidates did not break into double-digits. Trump is doubling (or more) the level of support of the candidate right behind him in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, what are supposed to be the first three contests for the Republican nomination.  And in Florida, where Jeb Bush was governor for eight years and Marco Rubio has been a sitting U.S. senator since 2011, Trump is ahead of Bush by 1 % and ahead of Rubio by 20 % as of the latest poll! The first three contests are just six months away or less, and Florida just seven; a lot can change, and a lot must change, for Trump to lose at least the first three contests. But if he manages to stay ahead—and it’s his to lose and the burden is on other candidates to rise up—and wins the first three contests (let alone carry that momentum into Florida and prevail there), it’s very hard to see him losing the nomination.

Normally in the Republican primaries, there is one frontrunner or two candidates duking it out, maybe one dark horse candidate, and everyone else is on the bottom. In this case, there are fifteen candidates currently averaging in single digits. Where normally the few bottom dwellers would drop out and lose campaign cash relative to those on the top, almost all the candidates here are bottom feeders feeding on scarce resources. What this means is that almost all of them are close in both polling status and resources, making the incentive for staying in the race that much higher and the incentive for dropping out that much lower. This, in turn, means that they will likely continue to divide the non-Trump vote among them for months into the primaries, only helping Trump’s chances. The battle for being number #3 (or #4?) , with enough delegates at the convention to dictate things to the eventual nominee, including maybe even forcing the nominee to pick a certain vice presidential nominee, could thus carry a significance that no recent election has shown and bring us back to the old days of backroom wheeling, dealing, and kingmaking of the old-school political conventions. A divided or unpredictable convention, in the world of twenty-first century media, would be a political spectacle like nothing we’ve seen since the Florida debacle in 2000. In such an atmosphere, a man like Trump who seems to thrive on his cantankerous relationship with the media could indeed use the chaos to his advantage and that could very well mean a Trump ascension of the Littlefinger ladder to the Iron Throne of the Republican nomination (if you’re interested, read my take on the political and foreign policy lessons from Game of Thrones).

3.) Republican Primary Voters are a Different Breed

They Republican base voters are in an active revolt against their party’s establishment, and are in a perpetual revolt against the media. Trump picking a fight with Fox News—yes, even Fox News—and debate moderator/Fox News personality Megan Kelly (who did, frankly, in some ways seem hostile and out to get him even if her questions were totally legitimate)—works brilliantly for him in important ways. See, two things members of the Republican base hate are 1.) being told by The Republican Establishment/Elites who to vote for and 2.) being told by The Media Establishment/Elite who to vote for. They way they and Trump see it, both the Republican and Media Establishment (Fox News combines both of these) are out to get Trump, and this is actually true in a number of ways. Mainstream America thinks of Fox News as representing Republicans, and compared to most media, it does in a relative sense. But the base really gets its kicks from media sources like Breitbart and Drudge that have been quite friendly to Trump. They are also even generally older and whiter than the Republican Party in general, a party already known for being older and whiter than the average American, proportionately speaking. This makes them an extreme element in a party that has, as discussed, already become more extreme. In flocking to Trump and his extreme statements, along with Trump the GOP base is giving a big proverbial middle-finger to their own party’s Establishment and to the media in general, who both seemed eager to dismiss him as a farcical sideshow. All this leads directly to the final point…

4.) Trump Knows How to Play the Media to His Advantage Like a Harp

Trump is also brilliant at playing the media here; his provocations ensure he is dominating the news coverage and this is depriving oxygen to other candidates desperate for attention and airtime and who are at risk of suffocation, while at the same time any hostility from the media plays into his narrative that the media is out to get him and is trying to control the election, a narrative that the Republican base is only too eager to believe. That the Republican Establishment’s principal way to go after him is through the media itself is not lost on the base here, either. So in many ways, what others see as mistakes that will “doom” Trump’s campaign are actually nice big plates of red meat for the Republican base, the exact type of people whose support he needs to win primary contests and win the nomination. He is the incarnation of their resentment and they seem eager to support him because of that. And the more these feuds continue, the more that the media, frankly, can’t look away from him because they know covering him will draw viewers and make them lots of money, as the recent debate’s ratings proved (see below). The satirical newspaper The Onion captured the sentiment the best with a faux piece satirically “written” by Trump for parody purposes titled: “Admit It: You People Want To See How Far This Goes, Don’t You?”

*****

I am not here to say that I think Trump will win. I am here to simply say that dismissing him as a sideshow is naïve. Currently, he is the show (not only was the debate featuring Trump the most-watched primary debate ever with some 24 million viewers, it was the most watched program ever broadcast [only] by cable news and easily beat the NBA finals’ and a typical Monday Night Football game’s ratings). Again, as mentioned, someone has to climb up from the pack and beat him. Bush had (see below) been the second highest in the polls, and has raised a lot of money ($100 million+ including his PACs). But he has not been impressive thus far and would need to greatly improve his performance for him to win, and his greatest advantage—his name—is also his biggest curse. Walker had (see below) been third generally, but not even generally above 10 %; he, too, would need to cover a lot of ground to reach first and hardly distinguished himself during the debate even if he did ok. Both Rubio and Fiorina had a good night (the latter only at the kids-table debate where no rivals treated her as a threat or challenged her), but one good night for candidates so low in the polls does not bestow a crown upon either, and they are both quite vulnerable in their own ways (to be discussed in a forthcoming piece). With early signs showing Republican voter support strong and not falling for Trump in multiple unscientific flash polls and in the first scientific poll released since the debate (the latter showing him still nearly doubling the second-place candidate who is now Ted Cruz!), with Bush and Walker falling to be tied now for sixth place, the burden is on one of these problematic candidates or another to make up the gulf in popular support between them and The Donald. Love him or hate him, just don’t be writing Trump off yet.

UPDATED: Another national poll just released today taken wholly after the debate has Trump up to 32 % with a big post-debate boost, almost tripling the support for second-place-Bush who is at 11 %. Ben Carson (!?) has jumped to third place with 9 %, and Walker and Rubio tie for fourth place at 6 % each. In addition, a new Iowa-specific poll has trump increasing his lead, putting him at 19 % to Walker’s and Carson’s tied second-place 12 %, followed by Bush at 11 % and a big boost to Carly Fiorina nipping at Bush’s heels with 10 % and Cruz just behind her at 9 %… As I suggested above, one can almost see Trump as a Roman emperor watching his rivals hack at each other as gladiators in the Colosseum in the sense that he rises above the (polling) fray and the rest take votes away from each other…

More Election 2016 coverage from this author:

The Republican Field & Debate: Substance vs. Style: What Trumps What?

All Hail Hillary! Her Political Nature Is Just What Washington Needs

If you think your site or another would be a good place for this content please do not hesitate to reach out to me! Please feel free to share and repost on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter (you can follow me there at@bfry1981)